Selebrities: "Lovely Things"

"Found," the first track on Selebrities' new album, channels the Smiths with melancholy musings delivered via clear, almost childlike vocals over new-wave beats and bass. It's an apt introduction to this second album for the Brooklyn"based band, whose tunes about romance, loneliness and heartbreak manage to uplift rather than depress, despite lines such as "The only truth I know is we're alone until we die."

Maria Usbeck's Freezepop-esque vocals are deceptively sweet and purposefully jaded against haunting keyboard and guitar melodies. Sometimes, as in the gentle lullaby "Fell to Earth," which features the gorgeously sad lyric "when the light came to get you, I lost my sight," we're invited to bask in the pain. Other times, as in the upbeat and playful "Lovers" and "Born Killers," we're just supposed to dance.